Do we need opposite-sex relationship?

iI read your long mail on this issue; I appreciate the idea of putting effort into making your dream a reality. I also felt happy for writing a mail, seeking guidance on this legitimate and often baffling matter. Your responsibility towards your family, education and execution thereof is very commendable.

Indeed, it’s not necessary that one must have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. There is no such rule that exists in society.

For various reasons, people enter into opposite-sex love relationships; people with insecure or anxious attachment styles often search for an opposite-sex relationship to complement their anxiety. For some people, it evolves from close friendships, and it forms naturally during their life journey; in this corporate and much-evolved society, males and females are bound to move together, work together on one platform, togetherness, sharing, caring and work for common goals in the college and office may lead to having better relationships, working for long hours, many days may generate a closeness, soon they find similarity, familiarity in thoughts, feelings and value system may create a comfortable environment to germinate a feeling beyond just friendship, in addition to this we are genetically wired to get attracted to opp. Sex, this attraction sometimes people may think it is love, these feelings convert their relationships into boyfriend/girlfriend with the intention to convert later into a marriage. Socially we are conditioned from childhood days to have boyfriend/girlfriend by films; this is one of the main reasons many teenagers are practising without checking whether this relationship is helpful to them or not. It is very common for young boys and girls to have a boyfriend/girlfriend in many developed, developing countries; millennials and post-millennials want to choose their life partner by breaking the old school of thought of having arranged marriages.

So, It is the choice of your life, which kind of life you want to live; you can make the choice, and this world allows you to live the way you want. So don’t be under the influence of your friends or family. Just observe society, read the literature, and make the proper choice to make life more happy and safe; there is no compulsion to go the way your friends are taking options. So please continue your devotion and interest towards your education in the same way you have been continuing. So you will reach better heights in your life and future. I endorse your opinion. Only education, the right value system, and healthy behaviours will ensure and elevate your social, financial and professional status and bring pride to your family.

(The writer is a counsellingpsychologist, www.younme.co, [email protected])